


A Mortgage & Two Cats

by lady_needless_litany



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Car Accidents, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 11:52:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12168351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_needless_litany/pseuds/lady_needless_litany
Summary: Post-Spectre, Bond finds his way back to London. A few months later, he unexpectedly winds up in Q’s apartment. His cats don’t approve (neither does their owner, to be honest) and everything goes downhill from there. Apparently break-ins and insults are not the quickest way to a man’s heart.





	A Mortgage & Two Cats

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short fic, which I'm planning to add to if I'm struck by inspiration. Tbh, I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, so I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> EDIT:  
> I temporarily lost momentum on This, but then finished it off for the WIP Big Bang 2018.

_"I have a mortgage. And two cats to feed!"_

It has been during the clash with Spectre that Q had hissed those words at him. They’d gotten lost in the chaos of that mess, so its implications had never really occurred to him until he found himself in Q’s apartment.

It was a summer Sunday, nearly noon. The sound of the street four floors below was muted and a few stray rays of sunlight fell through the windows on the far side of the living room. The place was warm and calm, filled with books and a TV and a small kitchen. Completely antithetical to what Bond had expected — something sterile, like his flat, except adorned with paperwork and the Q-Branch’s latest technology. Instead he found a home. Small, yet comfortable and unequivocally cosy. It felt safe, and would have done even if Bond hadn’t known all the security measures he’d had to circumvent.

Bond pulled a book from the shelf at random and sat down on the sofa. As he did so, he accidently disturbed the pile of fluff curled up at the other end of it.

It blinked lazily. Then stretched, preened, and leapt onto the floor, meowing loudly. Bond raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

It responded by meowing even louder. All brown fur and tufted ears and curious chartreuse eyes, Bond had to admit that it was a handsome cat. Its piercing stare somewhat reminded him of its owner.

Over the feline’s racket, Bond heard a sequence of muffled noise and surmised that his host was finally awake.

He was proved right when the bedroom door swung open a few moments later — a cue for the creature in front of him to fall silent, much to his eardrums’ relief. Q stood in the doorway, clad in a pair of grey pajamas, another cat in his arms. Given the man’s half-asleep state, Bond credited him with the fact that he didn’t look at all surprised to see the Double-Oh in his living room.

The cat scrabbled at his arms, so Q placed him on the floor. When he straightened up again, he finally asked: “What are you doing here?”

“I just got back from Canada.”

“And? That’s not an answer.”

Bond just shrugged and Q seemed to accept it, clearly not _compos mentis_ enough to question it.

  
Instead he turned, wandered past him and began clattering around in the kitchen. By the clamour behind him, Bond ascertained that the quartermaster was none too coordinated, having just gotten out of bed, and was relieved when Q eventually sat down at the far end of the sofa, steaming Earl Grey in hand. Bond watched him out of the corner of his eye, gaze ostensibly trained on the book in front of him.

A few seconds later, he decided to break the silence. “What kind of cat has that much fur?”

Q took a moment to respond. “Her name’s Ada. She’s a Maine Coon.”

“And that one?”

“George.”

He yawned, face bleary, and rubbed at his eyes. “Sorry. Not used to company this early.”

"It's eleven o'clock!" Bond replied, exasperated.

"It's a Sunday! Not all of us feel the need to be up at the crack of dawn."

Q sipped at his tea, regarding the agent silently.

“How did you know I was here?”

Q looked confused.

“You didn’t seem shocked when you saw me.” Bond explained.

“Oh! Ada’s collar. It detected your voice pattern and sent a notification to my phone. That’s what woke me up.”

"Your cat’s collar has vocal recognition?" he queried. "Why? I’d already gotten past your other security measures."

Q elegantly imitated Bond’s earlier shrug. "I was bored."

“Aren’t you at all interested by the fact that I broke into your house?”

“Not really. The security isn’t quite Double-Oh proof, although I’m working on that. I’m far more interested in why you broke into my house, seeing as you expertly bypassed that question earlier.”

“I’m supposed to be checking in with MI6, as usual, but their mission debriefs are so...tedious. I thought you would be faster.”

Q snorted. “Good try, 007. But that’s not my job.”

* * *

"Can't you ...?"

"Oh yes. I imagine that would be a perfectly legitimate use of taxpayers’ money." Q replied tartly.

Bond, for reasons inscrutable to Q, had taken to hanging around Q-Branch. It was distracting and it scared his minions, but the more he complained, the longer Bond spent there. In that, Q thought, Bond was no more than a petty child.

Q was aware that their banter — their entire relationship, in fact — was distinctly unprofessional. The kind of thing that he’d been intent on avoided when he’d become Q. MI6, though, seemed to have many unprofessional idiosyncrasies that their superiors overlooked (condoned, even) in the interests of morale. Humans in such a high-pressure environment needed release and MI6 couldn’t afford its employees becoming reckless.

The office betting pool, which he suspected was run almost exclusively by Moneypenny and R, was another example. He also knew that with every additional interaction, face-to-face or over an earpiece, between him and Bond increased the number of people betting on them eventually falling into bed together. That alone led to a vehement determination to keep the man at arm’s length, even if they were (dubiously, he’d admit) friends.

He snapped himself back to reality. Resumed typing, eyes trained on his laptop, even if he couldn’t focus enough to actually work on the lines of code filling the screen.

“Just think of how useful it could be.”

“‘Could’ being the operative word there, Double-Oh Seven.” He pressed a few more keys, pointlessly. What language was he working in? Java? SQL? C++? Julia? COBOL, even? He couldn’t remember. (He hoped it wasn’t COBOL. That was his least favourite language. So old-fashioned.)

Bond cocked his head. His voice turned wheedling. “Come on, Q. For me.”

“No.” Q said firmly, desperately hoping that Bond couldn’t tell how close he was to caving in, to doing it just to see his minion’s faces (he can’t even imagine what that would do to the betting pool). This thread of conversation had become something of an inside joke. A euphemism, Eve said, for something a little more risqué. “You’d probably lose it on your first mission.”

“What can I do to make you do it?” That starts to sound...suggestive enough to make parts of Q’s cheeks blush.

“Nothing. Get over it, Bond. I’m not making you an exploding pen.”

* * *

 

The next day, when Bond made his customary appearance, started out much the same.

“Surely a pen isn't that much of a stretch. You made that watch, after all.”

“That watch was built using blueprints left by my predecessor. The materials were already here.” He sighed, harried. “Double-Oh Seven, I simply don't have the time or resources to indulge your whims. If I could, I would, if only to stop you pestering me.”

Bond looked affronted at the suggestion that he could ever do anything as indecorous as ‘pestering’.

Q hoped that was the last he’d hear of it for the day. He hadn't been lying — he really had no time to spare and his patience with the agent was running thin. He usually enjoyed their conversations — even if he’d never admit that to Bond — but his job had to come first, especially when there were four active Double-Oh missions, multiple prototypes to be tested and an audit. It was going to be a long day.

“You know, you’ve been dressing better lately.” The words were accompanied by a half–smirk, making it hard to ascertain the man’s sincerity. Or, more likely, his lack thereof.

“How I dress is none of your business, Bond.”

It was true, though, that he’d been making more of an effort. He’d invested in a good suit or two — more modern that the classic cuts Bond himself favoured. They flattered him, he thought, lending him an edge of professionalism and credibility.

“No...but one has to ask, why the sudden change?”

_Don’t flatter yourself, Bond._ Q thought. _They certainly weren't for you._

“Perhaps I decided that I didn’t like conceited, brash, condescending agents making snide remarks on a daily basis.”

That was definitely true. He’d noted a clear change in the Double-Ohs’ attitude towards him since he’d become more attentive to his appearance. They’d stopped treating him like a child. In his current frustrated state, he thought it illustrated the archaic, shallow values they held. It seemed that they valued his style over his intelligence, over his ability to stop them from dying.

“Some of your cardigans are crimes against humanity.”

“That may be so, but some of us have more important things to think about than the cut of my jacket or the colour of my cravat.” He was unnaturally sharp, his volume and tempo rising far from his usual cadence.

“Q, even I don't wear cravats on a daily basis.”

Q continued as if Bond hadn't spoken. “Things like, say, national security. Dealing with the bureaucracy and increased oversight of Her Majesty’s Government. The health and wellbeing of everyone in Q-Branch, not to mention the Double-Oh section, which seems to go out of its way to create trouble for me!”

“Q, you know we appreciate you. It's just teasing.”

“Perhaps,” Q pushed his glasses up his nose. “I could believe that if the lot of you occasionally brought some of my technology back. Or, dare I suggest, actually _follow orders_!” His voice had risen to a near-shout. Every pairs of eyes in the room was studious averted, but Q could tell that every pair of ears was primed to hear every word they said.

“Q…”

The man didn't reply.

* * *

 

The next day, Bond knew he’d offended Q when R briefed him instead.

Bond studied her, realising he’d never paid her much attention. She ran through the briefing with an impressive level of competency and professionalism, making it obvious why Q trusted her as his right hand. No discernible accent. Hair pulled back into neat bun. A brilliant mind, clearly.

“Where’s Q?” he asked abruptly, disregarding the fact that R could take offense.

She didn’t, fortunately, instead replying: “Upgrading MI6’s digital defences. Again.”

That was uncharacteristic; the only times that Q didn’t directly brief his agents is when he was overseeing a mission. But he decided not to push it, listened to R, and got on a plane to Ukraine.

When he landed and his earpiece crackled to life, it was R’s voice that guided him through the mission (simple reconnaissance, nothing he hadn't done a thousand times before). She was good. Really good. But she wasn't Q. Granted, Q was never there every second of every mission — he was far too busy for that — but he was alway there when it counted and to fill some of the long silences when Bond was in a room somewhere, sitting, watching, waiting. As the hours passed, painfully slowly, he found himself missing their easy banter.

When he returned to London, after a miraculously uneventful mission, he went straight to Moneypenny. Took her out for lunch, to a little restaurant a few streets away.

“What happened?”

She raised an eyebrow, taking a sip from her martini as she did so.

“I really shouldn't be drinking at lunchtime.” The admiring look she gave her drink belayed her words.

Bond just tapped the table impatiently.

Moneypenny sighed, long-suffering, like he was a child that couldn't grasp that _one plus one equals two, James. It's simple._

“Think about it. Really, try.”

Leaning forwards, Bond fixed her with an intense stare. “Do you think I haven't?”

Moneypenny, however, was immune to his scrutiny; if Bond was honest, that was one of the reasons he liked her. “What was the last thing you said to him?”

“We argued.”

“Well, from what I've heard from R, you questioned his authority. More or less. Implied something about his appearance being more important than his competency.” Bond tried to protest, but she pressed on. “During the SPECTRE debacle, think about what he did for you. The risks he took. He put his career on the line for you, and you repaid him by stealing his technology and vanishing for three months. Then you reappeared, with no apology or explanation, and expected him to treat you as if nothing had changed.”

For once, Bond seemed to be speechless. Moneypenny took a fortifying mouthful of her drink before continuing.

“He regularly works a fourteen hour day, six days a week, to keep all of you alive. It's not sustainable, but he won't listen to me. Since you’ve been back, and it must have been a good six months now, have you not noticed the fact that he’s been stressed? Not once?”

Bond murmured his reply: “No.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I suppose you’ve got a better idea of why things are so tense with him.”

“You know, he never seems…”

“He’s good at hiding it. For the sake of his employees. And his agents. But I worry about him.”

* * *

This time, he materialised at Q’s shoulder as he tinkered with a rifle, his latest project.

“Why did you send me to Ukraine, Q? It didn't need a Double-Oh. Anyone could have done that.”

The Quartermaster turned around, using the edge of the workbench as a perch.

“I don’t always control your missions, Bond. Those instructions came directly from M. I just picked the agent.”

“Ah. I wasn't sure if it was some kind of revenge.”

Q blinked at him in wide-eyed confusion. “Revenge for what?”

“I don't know. Some offhand comment that you took offence to.”

In stark contrast to their last conversation, Q did not grow angry. He just seemed tired, resigned.

“If I avenged every perceived slight…” Q laughed dryly. “God knows, most of Six’s employees would be permanently without electricity. Or would find their bank accounts frozen. Or something like that.” He shook his head. “Thankfully, I don’t put agents in danger to massage my own ego. I’m not the petty child here, Double-Oh Seven. I think you’ll find that’s you.”

* * *

Bond thought that their relationship seemed to have returned to its usual state. He’d only seen Q a few times and all of them had been short, but they’d avoided any arguments or real discomfort. As for Q’s slight awkwardness, his forced laughter — Bond attributed it to stress, with Moneypenny’s revelations heavy on his mind. In fact, he purposefully kept their interactions limited, calculating that the best way to avoid adding to Q’s burden was keeping out of the way.

He couldn’t help checking on him occasionally, though — spending his surplus time in Q-Branch had become a reflex.

He strolled into Q-Branch’s one morning, about two weeks later. Much to everyone’s relief, Q had reluctantly relocated after months of M’s wheedling.The substantially reduced commute — now a simple sojourn in the MI6 lift, rather than a trek to the banks of the Thames — had been a cause for much celebration. It was a nice place, too: MI6 hadn’t skimped on its construction.

Q didn’t believe in compartmentalised working spaces, so the whole floor was open. One end functioned as the office space, the other end as a workshop, the middle as a free-flowing kind of area; Bond hadn’t quite been able to get his head around it at first. Especially the _beanbags_. What kind of mess had _beanbags_ in the middle of their working area? Even Moneypenny hadn’t been able to keep a totally straight face while she’d informed him that, apparently, it stimulated creativity and had been very thoroughly researched.

It was still underground, for some reason. Perhaps the rumours of Q’s vampirism were not entirely unfounded.

However, on this morning Bond was disappointed to find it devoid of his favourite Quartermaster, the whole place surprisingly quiet without him. Besides, he suspected that most of the minions were taking the rare opportunity to get a late start — there were only four or five people in the whole place.

“Where’s Q? Not like him to be late.”

“Meeting,” R replied without looking up from her computer. She seemed fully swept up in what she was doing, mildly irritated by Bond’s interruption. “M’s being a bit of an arse lately. All the new government scrutiny.”

“Sounds familiar.” Bond muttered.

“Look, he won’t be long. Sit down-” she gestured to a couple of chairs arranged around an empty desk. “-and don’t touch anything.”

Bond wasn’t really one for sitting down. He complied with R’s instructions for all of about two minutes before one of the few people actually in the office walked up to R, brandishing a stack of paper and an apologetic expression. He used it as a chance to slide out of his chair and wander down into the workshop area.

He poked around a little, moving between the workbenches. As he did so, more people began trickling into the room, several of them casting concerned glances in his direction.

He stopped at one bench to peruse the contents of a small, fabric-lined box.

Although he naturally tended towards the wary when it came to things in Q-Branch, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about the three rings in the box, so he pinched one between two fingers and brought it to eye-level.

The rings were all slightly different designs. The one Bond picked up was neither traditionally masculine or feminine, though it was surprisingly heavy. He guessed it was made of titanium, with a strip in the middle that rotated. A series of Roman numerals, one to five, was engraved on this inner ring, and a single line passed over the outer ring, like a meridian on a globe.

“Bond, put that down, it’s not even been tested yet.” R called across the room, suddenly anxious.

Bond ignored her. He twisted the inner ring so that the ‘I’ aligned with the meridian.

There was a lapse of about three seconds.

It emitted a flat, high-pitched screech that was loud enough to make it seem that it was lancing through Bond’s brain. He instinctively dropped it, dropping to the floor as it rolled a few metres away from him.

R scrabbled around on her desk for a few seconds, apparently searching for something, until the noise overpowered her and she sank under her desk with her hands clamped over her ears.

A few moments later, thankfully, the sound cut out.

The ringing silence left behind was like water on cracked lips — painful at first, but bringing a deep relief.

Shakily, R stood. She winced as she did so. Following her example, Bond used the flat of his hands to push himself off the floor. One by one, the other people in the room did the same, several blinking tears of pain or shock out of their eyes. Bond, being so close to it, was left with a blinding headache and a dull pounding in his ears; he assumed that both would fade eventually, so did his best to ignore them.

No one had spoken yet: they were either consumed in themselves or looking towards the door.

Q was standing in the doorframe, expression carefully neutral. In his hand was a phone, which he’d used to switch the ring off. Luckily, remote deactivation was one of his key safeguards.

“I’m sorry, Q, I _told_ him not to touch anything, but…” R trailed off, noticeably distressed.

“It’s alright, it’s not your fault.” He looked around the room, worried. “Does anyone require medical attention?”

One or two, the closest to Bond, looked unsure, but everyone slowly shook their heads.

“Good.”

He turned his back on Bond, crossing to his desk. He stopped briefly to press a reassuring hand to R’s shoulder, which she met with a watery smile. He unceremoniously slung his bag onto the floor, then stood behind his desk for a moment, surveying the still-shell-shocked minions.

Q couldn’t look at Bond as he spoke, knowing that doing so would undo his control over his rage. “You’re lucky it was on its lowest setting.”

“What is it?”

“It emits a high-frequency sound.” Q informed him, still avoiding eye contact. “It’s supposed to be a non-violent way of incapacitating hostiles.”

It was at this point that everyone else in the room decided that it would be best to escape the tangible tension; people scattered across the room, variously returning to work or searching for Paracetamol to soothe their throbbing headaches or sidling out of the room entirely. Meanwhile, Q and Bond remained immobile, finding themselves at something of an impasse.

Bond went to speak, but was halted by Q shaking his head. He made a series of abstract, aimless gestures in an attempt to convey his speechless disbelief. When, eventually, that failed, Q finally looked Bond in the eye and opted for a curt question.

“Why? How?”

“I don’t know,” came the reply. “Although I can tell you that you shouldn’t leave things like that just lying around.”

There was a pause, where the whole room seemed frozen.

A quick succession of thoughts visibly flashed through Q’s mind, staring and ending with: _don’t try to tell me how to do my job._ Indeed, everyone else in the room seemed affronted on Q’s behalf — Bond got the feeling he wouldn’t be welcome in Q-Branch for a while.

“Bond,” Q said, exhaling with forced calm. “Get out of my department.”

Bond knew when to cut his losses. He began to saunter out, pausing a metre or so away from Q. “Well, at least you know it works.”

Q didn’t respond. He was still standing behind his desk, but his hands were pressed against the table, fingers splayed, in an attempt to suppress his frustration.

“But really,” Bond couldn’t help but push his luck. It was second nature to him. “No threats? That’s usually what happens when one of your gadgets gets damaged — you generally tell me that you’re going to send me on a mission with a spoon.”

“No, Bond, because this is marginally different.” he spoke quickly, each word clipped and biting. “This is a one hundred thousand pound prototype that took me _six_ _months_ to put together. Not to mention that you put the well-being of everyone in this room at risk.”

The rest of Q-Branch was painfully silent. Bond recognised this situation, remembered the incident that had occurred only a few weeks previously. He recalled Moneypenny’s words and started to speak, but Q cut in:

“No, Double-Oh Seven, I really don’t have time to listen to your excuses. I’m extremely busy.”

“Q, I-” he’d been going for conciliatory, realising a second too late that it was probably being interpreted as patronising.

“Out. Now.”

The words _before I make you_ were silently heard.

Bond’s only thoughts as he left — with a swagger that was entirely faked — were _God_ , _that was stupid_ and _I wish that everyone I pissed off would react so maturely, rather than trying to shoot me._

* * *

Bond practically threw himself into the car, glad he’d parked it right in front of the restaurant. He calculated that his target — driving a sparklingly new Hyundai — would head out of town, aiming to shake Bond on the winding mountain roads. They were already not far from the place’s outskirts. He swerved through the traffic perilously.

Q could see the scene unfolding via a small dash cam that he’d had Bond attach to the Suzuki earlier — an atypical move, but one that Q was glad of now. Magnified by the size of the screen in front of him, the image was annoyingly grainy, but more than clear enough for Q to get a good view. This mission was important enough that M had sent Moneypenny, as his proxy, to monitor it and text him brief updates every few minutes. He’d routed audio through his speakers so that she could hear, which had resulted in a fair portion of the minions earwigging. R had even gotten up and now stood behind him to watch.

He had a three-screen setup. Currently, the left screen was showing Bond’s vitals, measured through a smart watch; the centre was occupied by the dash cam feed, while Q was using the right to scroll through the case file.

“Bond, I really don’t think that pursuit is the wisest option-”

“Well, what _else_  do you suggest?” he snarled.

“Bond, we need the man alive! He needs to be held accountable for his crimes, let alone the fact that he may have information on others.”

Bond let out a sound that was suspiciously growl-like. “There’s not time for caution in a situation like this, Q!”

Q fell silent, knowing better than to distract an agent in the thick of a mission. He’d learnt, by watching a concerningly large number of car-chases in real time, that that only increased the chances of them crashing. Thankfully, the one time that had actually happened had been relatively anticlimactic — 009 had grazed the front bumper of an police car in Washington D.C. No one injured, but a nightmare to smooth over with MI6’s American cousins, who hadn’t been too pleased that the UK was conducting covert operations without prior approval.

At this point, the video was giving him heart palpitations. Bond’s surroundings had turned pastoral, meaning that the road was far too narrow and uneven for Q’s liking.

“Come on, James,” Moneypenny breathed behind him. “Don’t lose it now.”

Q wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the target or Bond’s control of the car. Perhaps both.

Every minute stretched out, uncomfortably protracted, as Bond weaved his way along roads that were becoming steadily more twisted as they gained altitude. They were five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes in; Bond prayed that the Hyundai would run out of petrol before his car did.

Heart pounding as if he were the one driving the car, Q tried to while away his time by reacquainting himself with the case file, despite the fact that he could probably state it from memory. Instead, he found himself skimming the first paragraph over and over again, mind incapable of distracting itself.

He found himself gripped, pulse fluttering as he witnessed Bond take corner after corner, barely decelerating as he did so. He suppose that the saving grace of it all was that it was impossible for the two cars to go flat-out, but that didn’t stop Q’s knuckles going white as he gripped the edge of his desk. He felt so utterly powerless, unable to intervene or help. That quickly degenerated in anger, rage, at Bond’s recklessness. At his sheer bloody-mindedness, which jeopardised both his own life and the mission, which was the culmination of several months of hard work.

Suddenly, the car in front of him tried to take a corner too fast.

Bond slammed his foot onto the breaks, stopping dead.

Q was hoicked out of his reverie as the Hyundai spun out of control, sliding off the edge of the road. In what seemed like slow-motion, it slid down the hill, gaining more and more speed until it flipped onto its roof and rolled over and over again. The sounds it made — the cracking and crushing of the metal — were sickening.

Bond brought the heel of his palm down on the steering wheel in anger.

“Bond?” Q’s pronunciation was unusually clipped, an indicator of anger. “Bond, can you hear me?”

Bond, fuming, took a couple of seconds to reply. “Yes.”

“Are you injured?”

“No.”

“The target?” Q already knew the answer, but insisted on hearing it from Bond.

“Target’s dead.” Bond’s bitterness at failure was palpable. “Any further instructions?”

“No. That’s the end of the mission.”

_Which you just completely messed up_ , Q added silently.

“In that case, how do I get out of here?” Bond checked the fuel gauge. “The car won’t make it back. I’m running on fumes.”

“Well, since you’ve lost all of your identification papers, you’re going to struggle to get out of the country.” Q said, inflectionless. “And you’re quite a ways out of town. Quite a walk, I’d say.”

“I’m sure you can sort something out.”

“I could.” Q said. “I could, but I won’t.”

“I thought you said you weren’t petty.”

“This isn’t pettiness. It’s discipline.”

The line went dead. Bond tore his earpiece out.

* * *

“Sir, this arrived this morning.” R said, dropping a piece of card onto his desk. “It’s addressed to you, although it doesn’t say who it’s from. Wouldn’t take a genius to work it out, though.”

Q reached for it, bringing it in front of his face for closer inspection. It was a postcard, of the extremely touristy variety. It was fairly lightweight, cheap. The picture, a clichéd pastoral scene, was printed in garish ink. It wasn’t subtitled, but Q would willingly hazard a guess at where it was.

He flipped it over.

It was blank, which didn’t really surprise him. A Chilean stamp, in the top right-hand corner, affixed with military precision. The address was minimal, only a few lines long: _MI6 Quartermaster, Whitehall, Londo_ n. Few people would be brazen enough to spell it out like that, but it stared out of the paper at him, glaringly obvious. The handwriting itself almost made up for it — its tight, yet elegant, curlicues were an exercise in baroque art. Q remembered being shocked the first time he saw it, unable to relate such a delicate thing to a man so brash.

“Bond.” Q muttered. “Of course.”

Despite himself, Q smiled a little. The thing was so passive-aggressive that it was almost endearing. Almost. Bond was not yet forgiven for the incident with the ring.

* * *

“Did you like the postcard?”

“It was a little gaudy for my taste.”

Q pushed his chair back from his desk, scooping up his tablet and moving past Bond. He walked through to the workbenches of the testing area. Doggedly, Bond followed.

“You stranded me in the middle of the Chilean mountains, with no passport and no money.”

“No. I provided you with both a passport and money. And a flight out of Santiago. You stranded yourself in Chile.” Q retorted. “And, if you’d followed my instructions…”

He left the sentence hanging, the answer self-evident.

Bond nearly rolled his eyes. “That’s hardly the point.”

“Isn’t it?”

Q retrieved a flat, black case from a drawer. He placed it on the table carefully, sliding his thumb under the catch to open it. Bond peered over his shoulder, noting the box’s sparse contents: a gun, an earpiece, a small portable camera.

“That it?” said Bond.

“Yes, that’s it, I’m afraid. It’s all you should need; this mission shouldn’t be too complicated.”

He huffed. “God forbid I get something interesting.”

“Don’t blame me, I’m not in charge. Complain to M.”

“Like that would get me anywhere.”

The complaint left a stiff silence in its wake, one that Q simply couldn’t face on that day. He’d already worked seven hours and it was shaping up to be a long, tiring day. Bond’s needling was just a step too far.

“R?” Q asked, voice raised.

She was soldering something at one of the work benches. At Q’s call, she turned and made her way over to them.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I think it’s best if you brief Double-Oh Seven today.”

She didn’t appear shocked, just smoothly took over. “Of course.”

* * *

 

It was late enough at night that Q-Branch was empty; Q had been alone, happily programming, until Bond had come along and shattered his peace. In fact, it still wasn’t quite clear was the agent wanted, apart from the opportunity to irritate him. And why was he here so late? Q had an excuse, but Bond did not.

Regardless, it gave him the privacy to voice the conversation that he had rehearsed over the past few days. It was important — the constant friction between the two of them was unsustainable and endangered their ability to work together. A risk that Q was not willing to take, seeing as it could easily end up with Bond dead.

Q realised that his nerves were making him fidget in a way that Bond would probably read as intimidation. Consciously, he stilled his hands, placing his palms against the cool surface; it grounded him slightly, though it was still impossible to meet Bond’s eyes. He was sure that if he dared to do that, his resolve would crumble into ash.

“Y’know...when I first became Q, I made a point of going through the files of all of my agents.”

“Oh, we’re _your_ agents now?”

Q ignored him.

“Some parts were classified, accessible only to M. Names of living family members, specific details of childhood, and so on.”

Bond laughed tightly. “Really? I’m surprised MI6 allows us any privacy at all.”

“And I spared myself some of the more graphic images, but it was educational nonetheless. I learnt what I needed to.”

“And what was that?”

Q tipped his head to one side, eyes sliding over Bond’s face in a calculating analysis. “The internal mechanisms of each person. How they tick. What’s important to them. Why they are who they are.”

Bond had stopped joking. He remained silent.

“That was invaluable information, even if I still miscalculate at times,” Q continued. “Because it lets me estimate someone’s likelihood of becoming a liability, and when and where and how that might happen, and how I should avoid it.”

“That’s an awfully large claim, Quartermaster,” Bond said slowly. “Even arrogant, one might say.”

“Yes, it is. But it’s not inaccurate and that’s what matters.”

“Maybe.” he replied. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m almost certain of what makes you the way you are today.”

Besides M — _his_ M, not Mallory — next to no one knew anything about Bond. Blofeld, of course. Madeleine Swann, with all her training and wit, had only managed to puzzle out a small part of him: they had parted ways before she could learn more. Moneypenny knew a few scraps, Mallory chose not to know. And that’s the way he wanted to keep it.

“Well, being shot by a colleague, coming back from the dead, blowing up your childhood home, being betrayed by MI6 multiple times, sleeping with a psychologist that happens to be the daughter of a prominent figure in your adoptive brother’s worldwide criminal network...well, that does take a toll on a person.” His tone was scathing, insincere. It was coupled with a caustic smile, the kind usually reserved for people that Bond was preparing to kill.

Still, Q didn’t lose his nerve. He’d come a long way since their first encounter in the National Gallery. He was deliberate, every word falling from his lips like a bitter drop of cyanide. “No. I think it started quite a while before all the of that. I think it started with an idyllic island in the Bahamas and a haemolacria-suffering opponent. Perhaps even a high-stakes poker game. A high body count.”

“Perhaps.” Bond’s voice had tightened. “I still don’t see the relevance.”

“Well, I think that the reason you’ve been acting so recklessly lately is because of fear.”

“Tell me, what is it I’m afraid of?”

Q kept his voice level. “The fact that the last time you felt like this was when you met a beautiful accountant called Vesper Lynd.”

Bond’s heart stopped.

“What did you just say?”

“You’re good at hiding your emotions, Bond,” Q adjusted his glasses. “And you’re good at not getting attached to people. I’m no psychologist, but I think it’s something of a protective reflex that you’ve developed. Since Venice. Something’s getting in the way of it now, though.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Your reaction tells me that I’m right.”

A thought of lashing out at him flew through Bond’s mind, sudden and unheeded. It was immediately followed by a sense of self-loathing — there was something repulsive about the thought of hurting Q.

Q searched Bond’s eyes, not sure what he was looking for. Confirmation, perhaps. “You’re afraid. Of yourself, of the way that you feel. The vulnerability.”

“Well, apparently that’s what love does to a person.” Bond looked away. “That’s why it’s incompatible with this job.”

And that was it. It sounded so final.

As Bond walked out of the room, Q collapsed into his chair. He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, that was making his heart twist within chest. It could have been anger or annoyance, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was disappointment.

* * *

“It’s a weakness. It’s the kind of thing that gets you killed, in this line of work.” Bond punctuated the statement with a large sip of his whisky. He was beginning to accept that Q had been right, but he was fighting it, kicking and screaming.

He was out with Moneypenny again. This time, it was early evening in an up-market bar in Mayfair.

“Maybe.”

“There is no ‘maybe’.”

Moneypenny hummed noncommittally, taking a mouthful of her wine. “He’s not weak, y’know,” she said suddenly. “He’s a hell of a lot stronger than you give him credit for.”

“It’s not about him being weak.”

Moneypenny’s expression said _fine, be that_ _way_ , but she kept her reply civil. “Fine. So it’s not the best idea. Do you love him, though?”

“Does it matter? I can’t act on it.”

Moneypenny rolled her eyes. “Bond, answer the damn question.”

“I - maybe.”

“‘Maybe.’” she parroted, disbelieving. “Consider me overwhelmed by the emotion there.”

Bond gave Moneypenny a dirty look, which she tossed aside with faint smile.

He swallowed the rest of his whiskey in one. “If you really want to know,” Bond said in a bitter whisper. “Then - yes. Yes, I do.”

* * *

The canteen was cramped and busy. In actuality, it wasn’t even a canteen, just a tiny kitchenette and a few tables shoehorned into a ground-floor room in MI6’s new headquarters. Thankfully, Q and Moneypenny were both of sufficient enough rank that they were naturally granted their own table, everyone else keeping themselves out of earshot.

“He treats me like a child. In fact, he’s a complete arse. I know it’s practically part of his job description, but I’d appreciate the occasional bit of respect.”

“They're not normal, Q. None of them are. They see things every day in the field that most of us can only imagine.” Eve says. “Even we’re not normal, Q, because we live those things through cameras and screens. And we clean up the messes they leave behind them.”

Not for the first time, Q found himself mildly intimidated by how perceptive she was.

“I know that – really, I do. And I would never want him to be normal. It's just…” Q breaks off, staring into the mug cradled with two hands. A breath, and he starts again. “I don't expect him to be normal. I don't even expect him to understand. All I'm asking for is a little bit of empathy.”

“I know.” Moneypenny sighed. “What you’re saying isn’t unreasonable, it’s just…”

She was unable to finish her sentence - Bond was one of those things that refused to be put into words without significant effort. Q caught the drift, though.

“I don’t know, Eve. I really don’t.” Q skewered his food with a little more aggression than was strictly necessary.

“Why do you care about this so much? You usually don’t give a damn about what people think, so what’s up with him.”

Q suspected that she already knew the answer to that, so just shrugged vaguely.

She sighed. “D’you know he took me out for drinks last night?”

“Who did?”

Moneypenny rolled her eyes. As if she could be talking about anyone other than the subject of their conversation. “Bond, obviously.”

A point-blank ‘why’ seemed a little rude, so instead he just raised an eyebrow and hoped that she’d oblige.

She took the hint. “He wanted to talk,” she explained. “Didn’t feel like the office was the right place to do it.”

“What did he want to talk about?”

“You.”

Q’s heart rate pick up. “Me?”

“If I told you exactly what he said, he’d probably murder me.” she said lightly. “But you should make an effort to speak to him.”

Q stabbed his salad again, shoving a lettuce leaf in his mouth ungraciously. “We’re not on speaking terms.”

“I noticed. The office betting pool’s been stagnant since the incident with the ring.”

Q just shook his head, though Eve couldn’t discern whether it was disapproving or merely resigned.

“As your friend,” she continued. “I want you to be happy, and I know that this debacle with Bond is making you miserable. As your colleague, I can tell you that I, and everyone else in this building, will be much happier when the two of you stop sulking.”

“Look,” Q said, after a few seconds of vexed chewing. He could recall Bond’s chilliness all too clearly. “The last time we spoke didn’t go well. I’m not in a rush to repeat the experience.”

“Seriously. Next time you see him...it’ll be worth it, I promise.”

* * *

The Double-Oh offices — which were completely pointless, as far as Q was concerned, given that they spent most of their time empty — were located on the top floor of the MI6’s Whitehall headquarters. They were almost shoved up one corner, the amount of space afforded to them being accurately proportional to their utility.

They did, at least, have a little privacy. There was a single, discreet wooden door, marked with an engraved metal plaque reading: _00_ _Section_. If you weren’t paying attention, you could walk past it a thousand times and never notice it.

Q, however, was well aware of its location. He’d been up there multiple times to scold one or two of them or to drag them downstairs for an official debriefing.

He hesitated a moment with his hand on the doorknob, steeling himself.

The door opened with a quiet clunk, leaving him in a modest, windowless antechamber.

In days gone by, the space might have been occupied by a secretary or assistant, although God knows who would’ve wanted to deal with all of the Double-Ohs in such close quarters. Today, it was mostly empty, save for a nearly-deceased houseplant that had clearly seen better days.

The walls were cardboard-thin, obviously retrofitted, and the doors leading off the room were laughably flimsy. Really, the whole affair was rather cheap and unstylish, which was probably why the Double-Ohs hated it with a burning passion.

There were four rooms, each housing two or three desks. The lack of space forced the agents to share rooms — fortunately, it was a non-issue, as it was rare for there to be more than two or three of them out of the field at any given time. At the moment, three of the doors were tightly shut; the one dead opposite was wide open, presumably because it was the only one currently occupied.

Its occupant was seated behind a laminate desk that squarely faced the outer door, where Q was standing. Disdainfully, he had been peering at a stack of paperwork — Q’s entry had distracted him.

“Unusual to see you up here, Quartermaster.” Bond’s tone stopped short of openly hostile, but it held a certain frostiness that couldn’t be ignored.

Q stepped inside, fastening the door behind him.

“Could say the same for you,” he fired back. _Off topic_ , he scolded himself, _and not helping the situation._

Bond laughed shortly.

“You’re not wrong.” Bond said. “But it is my office.”

The very clear implication being: _why are you here? I didn’t ask you to be here._

“I came up to talk.” he skittered off topic for a moment, feeling awkward. “Anyway, where are 004 and 009? Both of them are supposed to be in London right now.”

Bond simply stared at him for a minute, staying silent long enough that Q genuinely feared that he would refuse to answer. It certainly felt that he held all the cards on this occasion, unlike their previous tête-à-tête.

“Double-Oh Four has a mid-afternoon...assignation,” Bond said, drawing the sentence out to avoid any doubt over its intent. “Undoubtedly, Double-Oh Nine is playing bridge, or something equally scintillating.”

Q attempted a laugh. It fell flat, leaving the room even more uncomfortable than it had been before. Bond’s gaze reminded Q of a shark’s: unrelenting; predatorial, but lazily so, the look of a creature used to being untouchable.

“Look, anyway, I just wanted to say…” Q cleared his throat. “I’m sorry that I was so intrusive. The other day, I mean. It wasn’t necessary.”

The apology was unexpected.

Bond had the grace to look at least a little repentant. “You weren’t the only one at fault.”

There was no doubt as to the sincerity in his voice, but it felt like it wasn’t enough. A voice in Q’s head demanded more, told him that he deserved _more_.

“No, I wasn’t.”

It seemed contrary to Bond’s very self to apologise; he spoke slowly, like he was spitting out each word individually. “I was brash. Aggressive. It wasn’t-” Bond took an additional moment to pinpoint the correct phrase. “-fair on you.”

“Well,” Q said, the only indicator of his discomfort being the surreptitious way that he slid his hands into his pockets. “I suppose that-”

“We both confronted some hard truths.” Bond completed Q’s sentence flawlessly. “It was needed.”

“Maybe, but still: I regret that it had to be so unfriendly.”

Bond nodded once, in agreement, his mouth curling into a half-smile.

That was the best you could get out of a man like James Bond, Q thought.

* * *

Two days later, Q was testing a new handgun in the testing range that was accessed through a sneaky, innocuous door in a corner of Q-Branch.

He fired a small burst of shots, noting the gun’s accuracy and recoil. Still a few modifications to make, by his reckoning.

He heard a voice behind him. “That's not too bad.”

He tried to downplay it, but Bond was seriously impressed. _Maybe Moneypenny had a point,_ he mused, _I never would have guessed that Q had that particular skill set._

“Is that admiration I hear, 007?” Q queried, attempting in vain to quell a spark of pride.

Bond hummed noncommittally, instead saying: “You're better that some of our field agents.”

Q stopped trying to be humble. “I wouldn't go that far, but thanks for the compliment.”

Bond picked up the gun, weighed it, aimed it. “So what's different about this one?”

Q suddenly realised how normal this conversation is. How easy. How unawkward. Like their conversations used to be before...before Blofeld and C and Madeline Swann.

And so, for the first time in months, Q allowed himself to enjoy Bond’s company; they discussed the handgun, Q showing off the new-and-improved biometric grip and the lightweight material. He even allowed Bond to try the thing.

“So, I suppose the pen is still a step too far?”

“Yes, it absolutely is.” Q said, hands on hips to emphasise the point.

“Well, it was worth asking.”

Q watched Bond leave, inadvertently admiring the lines of his jacket across his shoulders. In fact, the heat coiling in Q’s abdomen was back to being warm and intoxicating, rather than wrathful.

* * *

In the end, Bond didn’t kiss Q. Q kissed Bond.

It was abrupt and unexpected, halfway through a normal conversation: Bond was returning a few pieces of equipment, freshly returned from foreign climes. That, in itself, was a miracle to Q’s mind.

And then something compelled him to step forward and press his lips to Bond’s.

It was unplanned, not premeditated. Unlike Q.

And it was so totally different to Bond’s usual modus operandi that he was completely taken aback for a moment. So much so that he didn’t even kiss back.

Q pulled away only a second or two later. He seemed a mixture of terrified and shocked, like he couldn’t believe that he’d actually done something so forward; internally, his stomach dropped and his heart clenched, sure that he’d been wrong - disappointment and embarrassment warred for dominance. He instinctively took a step back. He dropped his eyes at the same time.

“I, um, I’m sorry, Bond. I didn’t…”

One hand fidgeted frantically, as if he was attempting to pull an answer from thin air

“Why are you apologising?”

“I-”

He was cut off as Bond covered the ground that Q had yielded. There was, unexpectedly, a gently firm hand on the back of his head, and another spanning his neck and jaw. They carefully tilted Q face upward. Bond’s gaze examined him, sliding over his cheekbones and down to his lips, then flicking back up to his eyes.

“You think too much.” Bond murmured, before leaning to kiss Q again.

**Author's Note:**

> The cats are named after Ada Lovelace and George Boole, if you were interested.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, you can find me on Tumblr: lady-needless-litany

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for A Mortgage and Two Cats](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267564) by [Shuufleur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shuufleur/pseuds/Shuufleur)




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